1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a chassis locking apparatus in a scanner, and more particularly to a chassis locking apparatus, which can be unlocked spontaneously as the scanner is actuated by inserting the plug into the socket.
2. Description of the Related Art
A scanner is an image-capturing device, which can transform the images originally distinguishable by human brains into digital data readable by electric brains or computers. Images read by computers can be displayed, edited, stored, and output. Scanners help human beings to complete many jobs such as puffing art graphs and pictures into documents, scanning characters into a document processing software to save time for re-typewriting, scanning fax information into a database or a document processing software for storage, putting lively pictures into multi-media, integrating images into a brief to express subjects more effectively, and so on. Because of the various advantages as mentioned above, scanners become indispensable periphery equipments for PC users or companies.
In general, the flatbed scanner has a chassis for sensing images. The chassis includes a photoelectric sensing device and a light source. The light sent out from the light source is reflected by the document on the glass flatbed and received by the photoelectric sensing device where the received light signals are transformed to electric signals. These devices in the chassis are all delicate components related to the quality of the scanning images. Any shock or crash in transit will easily damage these components in the chassis and then reduce the quality of the scanning images. Therefore, when the scanner is fabricated, a locking apparatus is usually installed for fixing the chassis in the scanner so that any shock or crash in transit will not damage these delicate components.
However, the conventional chassis locking apparatus is an independent apparatus without any concern with the components or devices operating in the scanner. It means that the user has to unlock the chassis locking apparatus by hand whenever the scanner is to be actuated, which results in inconvenience. Therefore, how to develop a chassis locking apparatus easy to unlock by users or even with no need to unlock by hand becomes a subject to be improved for producers.